Lord Jacob Rothschild, a wealthy British financier and a senior member of one of Europe’s well-known banking dynasties, passed away at the age of 87. He was also a famous philanthropist and patron of the arts with close ties to Israel.
His death was announced on Monday, February 26 by the Rothschild Foundation, a British Charitable Trust of which he was the chairman. It, however, didn’t disclose when or where or how he died.
Mr. Rothschild, formally known as the fourth Baron Rothschild, was born in England in 1936 to one of the wealthiest Jews families in the world. He was descended from Mayer Amschel Rothschild, a coin trader in the Jewish ghetto in Frankfurt, Germany. His four sons out of five, left home and shifted their base to Vienna, London, Naples and Paris to seek their fortune in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. For most of the 19th century, the House of Rothschild was considered to be the biggest bank of the world according to historians. Nathan Mayer Rothschild, one of the four sons, founded the bank’s London branch. His fortune can be compared to that of Bill Gates today. The Rothschild family even decided to finance the British military in the Napoleonic wars. But the broader dynasty flourished on cementing its family bonds.
Against this historic background, in 1963, Mr Jacob Rothschild joined the London arm of the family’s empire at the N.M. Rothschild & Sons bank. At that time, the conservative and exclusive realm of high finance in London was still two decades away from experiencing a seismic transformation towards a more liberalized capitalist ethos, a shift epitomized by the landmark events of the Big Bang in 1986, bringing deregulation to the London Stock Exchange. In this scenario, the stature of British merchant banks within the City, the financial hub of London, appeared dwarf compared to the expanding financial dominance of Wall Street, prompting calls for innovative strategies to navigate the changing landscape.
Mr. rothschild had a vision and he favored the idea of merging the London branch of his family’s financial empire with another merchant bank, S.G. Warburg. But his plan was opposed by his own father, Victor Rothschild, the third Baron and his cousin Evelyn de Rothschild. For them, “the preservation of family control took precedence over expansion,” the British historian Niall Ferguson wrote in his book “The House of Rothschild” (1998). According to Mr. Ferguson, the clash represented “a serious rift within the English branch of the family”. Mr. Jacob Rothschild, therefore, decided to break away and thus challenged a culture of family control and secrecy over the business.
“We must try to make ourselves as much a bank of brains as of money,” Mr. Rothschild said in 1965.
The dispute, however, was resolved years later in 1980. The feuding partners reached an agreement that the family bank, N.M. Rothschild & Sons Ltd., would operate separately from the breakaway entity established by Mr. Rothschild, known as J. Rothschild & Company. Notably, the primary assets of the latter entity were identified by the initials “RIT,” denoting the Rothschild Investment Trust.
Mr. Rothschild retired as head of RIT Capital Partners in 2019. That year, his personal wealth was estimated by the Bloomberg Billionaires Index to be more than $1 billion.
With an extensive global network, he held key positions including deputy chairman at Rupert Murdoch’s BSkyB Television and served as an advisor to then-Prince Charles. His affiliations extended to the International Advisory Board of the esteemed private equity firm, Blackstone Group. Furthermore, he played a pivotal role in the establishment of the J. Rothschild Assurance Group in 1991, now recognized as St. James’s Place, a London-based prominent wealth management entity.
Mr. Jacob Rothschild also played an energetic as well as secretive role in Israel, managing his family’s long-running philanthropic activities as head of the ‘Yad Hanadiv Foundation’. Over the decades, they quietly financed major projects, including the construction of Israel’s Parliament, Supreme Court and National Library, none of which bear the family’s name.
“We’ve tried not to be in the headlines,” Mr. Rothschild told The Jerusalem Report in 2012, adding, “Our tradition has been that we don’t shout from the rooftops what we are doing.”
Rothschild was also known for his long-standing patronage of the arts and was trustee of Britain’s National Gallery from 1985 to 1991.
Waddesdon Manor, an English country estate managed by the Rothschild Foundation said on ‘X’ that it and the foundation were ‘deeply saddened‘ by the death, calling Rothschild a “ businessman, entrepreneur, philanthropist and cultural leader.”
Lord Rothschild was married to Lady Serena Rothschild for more than 50 years until her death in 2019. They had four children – Hannah, Beth, Emily and Nathaniel, and a number of grandchildren. The complete information on his survivors, however, was not immediately available.
The family described him as a “towering presence” and announced that the banking magnate and peer in the House of Lords would be buried before a memorial service.
“Our father Jacob was a towering presence in many people’s lives, a superbly accomplished financier, a champion of the arts and culture, a devoted public servant, a passionate supporter of charitable causes in Israel and Jewish culture, a keen environmentalist and much-loved friend, father and grandfather,” Rothschild’s family told the PA Media news agency.